Ever since the introduction of viscous products sold in containers or bottles, consumers have been frustrated by the time and effort required to remove the last drop of product from the container. The desirability of draining the residue from near-empty bottles of ketchup, honey and other viscous liquids has long been recognized. Reasons for wanting to extract as much product as possible include reducing wastage, the absence of a newly purchased bottle or container of product, saving money, getting full product value (of a product) and the desire to facilitate rinsing of the container in preparation for recycling. Consistent with current environmental values, water would also be saved in the cleaning of recyclable bottles or containers.
Several bottle holders have been developed to facilitate extraction of the last remaining contents of containers from closed and inverted bottles so that the contents will be readily available when the bottle is opened again for use, and numerous designs for inverted bottle holders have been patented. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,271,878 to Bologna discloses a device with an upper portion having an opening for receiving the neck of a bottle with the bottle in an inverted position. Means are provided for supporting the device in stable equilibrium on a support surface with the upper portion of the device in an elevated position in which the bottle is held clear of the support surface so that a container can be placed below the mouth of the bottle. A plurality of fingers extend inwardly of the opening in the upper portion of the device and are arranged to engage the neck of the bottle. U.S. Pat. No. 5,105,860 to Connor describes an apparatus with three openings within a base having varying diameters, depths and shapes to accommodate containers of varying dimensions. U.S. Pat. No. 5,664,753 to Takei discloses a device designed to engage the cap of a bottle to hold the bottle or container in an inverted position. U.S. Pat. No. 5,924,659 to Babcock discloses an apparatus with a pair of grasping arms selectively adjustable to grasp and hold containers of various sizes and shapes in an inverted position. U.S. Pat. No. 6,109,581 to Kracke describes a holder with at least one side opening. U.S. Pat. No. 5,702,009 to Ouellet discloses a cube-shaped hollow body having a sidewall on each of five sides defining a cavity which is open at a sixth side. Several of the sidewalls have different sized apertures capable of holding the neck of particular sized bottles.
This background information is provided to reveal information believed by the applicant to be of possible relevance to the present invention. No admission is necessarily intended, nor should be construed, that any of the preceding information constitutes prior art against the present invention.